Sharp Beauty Draws Blood

Yesterday's extra, loaded up today, showed a beach with a backdrop of mountains with snow still in place. Today we headed into those mountains.
The hills of Crete are covered in plants with spines until you are so high that nothing grows and you enter a sort of highland desert.
Now in May the spines are still there but they are complemented by small green leaves and yellow flowers, adding an extra beauty to the Cretan mountains.
Today we picked up our hire car and drove up to the Omalos Plateau and then on to the start of the walk into the Samaria Gorge. 
I did that walk a couple of years ago, so today we were headed up, further into the mountains, to the Kallergi Refuge.
On the way down I took a short-cut on sheep/goat tracks. It went well except for one slip down into these spines which left me with some impressive scratches on both legs and my body.  (A little blood has to be shed if you can call it an adventure.)
The extras are all taken on this walk. A dry-stone igloo, Omalos Plateau, Jan grabbing some shade, mountains at the top of the Samaria gorge. There's more information in my Flickr group.